I MEET AN ADEPT 269
inevitable dawning of the same sun, his soul would rise triumphantly again to new life: that just as the sun arose unfailingly in the east each morning after its disappearance and was therefore undying, so the Pharaoh's soul would arise in the spiritual world after traversing the dark regions of the nether world—for it, too, was undying.
But for those who had passed through the initiations of the Ancient Mysteries there was a yet profounder meaning. Death had lost its terrors, for they had already "died" during life; and they knew that the soul would not merely live on after death, but that it would also live again in the flesh. The light of my electric torch played upon the left wall of the first passage as I advanced farther, and there I saw the representations of Rameses brought into the presence of the great gods—Osiris and Harakht and Amen-Ra. I moved on, and there was the king burning incense as an act of worship. I'passed two chambers above whose doorways were hieroglyphed praisings of the sun-god, and reached another wall where a priest poured out a stream of symbolic characters as in baptism over the Pharaoh's figure—among them the handled cross, key of the Mysteries and emblem or eternal life. And the dress of Rameses had changed as a result, for he now assumed an Osiris-form himself. His soul was released and justified, and he had been truly resurrected, and he had the right to preface his own name with that of the divine Osiris.
For was not his beautiful prayer: "Behold, I am in Thy presence, O Lord of Amenteit. There is no sin in my body. I have not spoken that which is not true knowingly, nor have I done aught with a false heart. Grant Thou that I may be like unto those favoured ones who are in Thy following, and that I may be an Osiris greatly favoured of the Beautiful God, and beloved of the Lord of the World."
And Thoth, who records on his palette the result of the weighing of the heart of the deceased, and delivers the judgment of the great company of the gods, had said: "Hear ye this judgment. The heart of Osiris hath in very truth been weighed, and his soul hath stood as witness for him; it hath been found true by trial in the Great Balance, There hath not been found any wickedness in him; he hath not done harm by his deeds; and he hath not uttered evil report while he was upon earth."
And the great company of the gods had responded: "That which cometh forth from thy mouth shall be declared true.